


Second thoughts

by Dhae



Series: Kingsman Library AU [2]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Library, Eventual Harry Hart | Galahad/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, Harry Hart Lives, M/M, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 05:40:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6892375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dhae/pseuds/Dhae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After their chance encounter at the library, both Eggsy and Harry needs to decide whether they want to actually see each-other again. And Harry needs to make up his mind on how to get to know Eggsy...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second thoughts

Harry thinks about the boy all the way home. He really is a wonderful distraction, but that also means he is dangerous. And that last name of his. Unwin. That rings a faint bell somewhere.

So when he walks through the door, he makes his customary obeisance to Mr. Pickle, and then heads straight for his computer. Book be damned, he has research to do!

Unfortunately, his searches yields very little on Eggsy Unwin. It’s as if the boy sprung, fully formed, out of nowhere. But since that can’t possibly be the case, he’s left with a single option. 

Kingsmen are not, as a rule, given personal access to all the resources of Kingsman. As a matter of both security and deniability, access to restricted information, such as medical records, criminal records and other kinds of records not available to the general public, is kept in the hands of Merlin and his merry band of minions. Which means Harry will have to talk to Merlin in the morning. And he just knows how that conversation is going to play out. 

With a sigh he closes his computer, picks up his book, and heads off to bed. At least he can finish the book. 

***

Eggsy falls into his bed with a relieved sigh. The gangs are getting ridiculous, and steering clear of them is turning into something of a chore. Thankfully, he’d merited a single cell once he started his work release program, which meant he was safe during the night, at least. 

And safe, tonight, means thinking ‘bout Harry Hart. 

Yesterday, Eggsy would have laughed at anyone who’d told him he’d have a civil conversation with some posh blighter who probably shopped for more in a year than Eggsy had spent in a lifetime. Of course, yesterday, Eggsy had never laid eyes on Harry Hart. 

Truth is, Eggsy has always had a soft spot for the posh ones. Boys, girls, don’t really matter to him. Stuck up pricks from Oxbridge can be fun once you loosen them up a bit. Posh birds loves it when Eggsy plays the rough chav. Mostly, he thinks, because he’s not really. The older ladies do so enjoy debauching him. Or being debauched by him, depending on their mood. But it’s the gentlemen he’s really gone on. A nice-looking older man in a pretty suit? Yeah, Eggsy’s all about that.

He pictures Harry in a suit, and grows faint from the sudden shifting of blood under his skin. Jesus. 

So, yeah, it ain’t a surprise that Eggsy would be attracted. No, it’s far more surprising that Harry would give him the time of day. 

In Eggsy’s considered opinion, posh blokes tend to have poles up their arses. And not the fun kind, either. He’s been picked up by his share of gentlemen, and they’ve all taken him for a ride. None of them left any doubt they weren’t in it for his lively fucking repartee. A few times he’s been abruptly dumped, because they’d not be caught dead by their friends and acquaintances with a chav in his early twenties. 

So all of Eggsy’s experiences tells him that Harry shouldn’t have wasted breath talking with him. And sure as shit shouldn’t have continued flirting with him once he’d made it clear he wouldn’t be available for another three months. So why the fuck had he? A quickie in the library bathroom? Not that Eggsy would be opposed, it just didn’t seem like the kind of thing Harry would be into. 

Well, whatever the fuck it was, Eggsy decides, he’ll hang onto the hope of seeing Harry Hart again. 

***

Merlin, predictably, is not impressed.

“You did what?”

Harry sighs soundlessly. “I went to the library.”

“A public library.”

“Yes.”

“Where you’re a patron.”

“Yes.”

“Under your actual name.”

“Well, yes.”

“Well, fuck me,” Merlin says and hides his head in his hands. “Did you actually pay attention to any of your training?”

Of course Harry knows to what he’s referring. And of course, he doesn’t give a fuck.

“Not really the point, Merlin.”

“Fuck you,” Merlin says venomously. “Seriously.”

“Will you just… look up the boy.”

Merlin grumbles under his breath about useless fucking spies who’re going to need him to clean up their messes, but runs the search anyway.

“There,” he finally says, and leans back. “Gary “Eggsy” Unwin. A nickname, apparently. You want it on your home terminal?”

“Yes, thank you,” Harry says distractedly. Merlin keeps scanning through the files.

“Father; Lee Unwin, Royal Marine. Died in Bosnia in ‘94. Mother; Michelle, now remarried to…”

Lee Unwin. Now he remembers. One of the men he’d considered as candidate for the Lancelot position. Ultimately he’d bowed to the man’s family, and decided on the unmarried Roger Thomas instead. To Arthur’s great and obvious relief. To him, the son of an Earl would always beat a nobody from the streets. 

And so Lee Unwin had gone on with his life, however brief, never knowing how close he came to knowing the most secret organisation on Earth.

“18 months for car theft; the little bugger stole some keys and went joyriding.” Merlin’s eyebrows rise as he’s obviously watching something on his tablet. “Very impressive joyriding,” he says with the kind of respect Harry’s learned to pay attention to. 

“Show me?” 

***

Tuesday is Eggsy’s day of kitchen duty. He doesn’t mind working the kitchen. With inmates - even trusted and vetted ones - within reach of knives and other kitchen utensils, there’s quite a few guards stationed around. Which means the few gang-bangers who make it to the kitchen usually keep their hands off Eggsy.

Also, he gets to hang out with Lilo for a day. 

Lilo’s a bit slow. Which means everybody’d picked on him. Eggsy’d faced down a pack of guys hounding him, and set out to teach Lilo some basic tricks for self-preservation behind bars. Like hanging out with the guards, most of whom had quickly grown to like Lilo. Always friendly, always helpful. That was Lilo for you.

Fat, too, Eggsy is reminded, as he walks into the kitchen. His nickname wasn’t a reference to the Disney-thing, but rather to the air mattress. 

And yet, as far as Eggsy can tell, there isn’t a mean bone in Lilo’s body, and the reason he’s serving 12 months mostly sounded like a complete misunderstanding. At least from what Eggsy had managed to piece together.

“‘ullo, Eggs,” Lilo greets him as he takes his place at the counter and waits for someone to tell him what to do today. He kinda hopes him and Lilo gets the potatoes. Peeling potatoes doesn’t require a lot of thought, not even for Lilo, and Eggsy could really do with talking to someone today.

“Hey, Lil’.” Eggsy had shortened Lilo’s nick once he’d realized how demeaning it was actually meant. Sure, Lilo doesn’t seem to mind, or even really realize, but Eggsy still feels like a heel when he uses it.

“You lookin’ ‘appy,” Lilo says, smiling because he’s always happy when the people around him are happy. “Good day yest’rday?

Eggsy can’t help smiling himself. “Excellent day yesterday,” he tells Lilo gleefully. “I met this bloke, real posh type.”

‘Uh-oh,” Lilo says, face falling. “Better watch out f’r those.” 

Eggsy will probably never know how or when Lilo learned that rich people were no good. But he kinda wants to find them and hurt them. Sure, he’s learned the same lesson, but pricks like that need a lesson in basic human decency. 

“Always do, Lil’, ya know that. But this bloke, man, he was different.”

“Ye like him,” Lilo says with that completely neutral inflection that means you can never be quite sure whether it’s a question or a statement. Eggsy likes to cover his bases with those. 

“Yeah, I do. Dunno why. We only talked for about five minutes,” and flirted, but sex and Lilo doesn’t mix. “He was reading a book, and before I knew it he’d offered to take me out for a drink afterwards; keep talking, ya know?”

Lilo nods solemnly. “Just about books,” Eggsy continues. “So I tell him that I’m leashed, and he tells me he doesn’t care, he’d like to see me again.”

“Are y’ goin’ to?” Lilo asks curiously.

“Well, if he comes to the library on my work days, I can’t really avoid him. “

Lilo tilts his big, friendly head, like the German Sheppard at the top of the stairs wondering why you made funny sounds as you tumbled down them. 

“But d’ye want to?”

That’s the question, isn’t it? Eggsy’s been thinking about that since the wee hours of the morning when he woke up. He’d gone in circles, from wanting to keep that random encounter pristine and just have it be a good memory of something that might have been, and will never be spoiled by reality. Through wanting to see Harry Hart again, and have it be brilliant. To fearing that seeing Harry Hart again will reveal him as the kind of uptight snob who’ll hate Eggsy on second sight. And straight back to the start. 

And yet, when Lilo asks, the answer is just there, as if he’d known all along. 

“Yeah. ‘Course I do.”

“Mm,” Lilo says and smiles happily, even as the staff puts them to work with the dishwasher; a noisy, dirty and hot task. Eggsy feels just the same. Hope. He’d quite forgotten how exciting that could be. 

***

Harry stare at the video captured by the police-car chasing Eggsy through London traffic, and feels himself grow rock-hard. Bloody hell, that is the most impressive driving he’s ever seen anyone perform. Kingsman drivers couldn’t match that, even on their best fucking days. 

It’s the ending, however, that makes all the difference in his decision. He watches Eggsy swerve, suddenly and seemingly unmotivatedly, into a lamppost, toppling the thing and wrecking his stolen car in the process. His two passengers scarpering seconds before Eggsy slammed into the front of the police-car. 

“What was he avoiding?” Harry ask, and of course, Merlin has an answer in a minute. 

Wordlessly, he cues the video, grainy and black and white, from an unsanctioned private video camera, where a small form - judging by the tail and the gait, Harry would say fox - froze in the middle of the road a mere instant before Eggsy came to an abrupt stop. 

“A fucking fox,” Merlin swears. “That’s…”

Harry agrees. Mostly. He’d passed his own dog test, years and years ago; and then he’d taken Mr. Pickle home and had cried into his fur and petted him until the little pest had eventually grown tired of licking his tears, lost patience with his little breakdown, and had bit him on the hand. 

Harry still look on those tiny scars with fondness. 

True, all of Kingsman would probably think the boy foolish, to sacrifice his future to save the life of a tiny, carnivorous vermin. But Harry finds he thinks it was an indication of a noble heart, that wouldn’t sacrifice the innocent. He wonders how different Kingsman would be if that was the guiding principle, rather than whether one would willingly take the life of an innocent animal; one whose life and wellbeing depended on the shooter. And all for what? Following orders? Or simply for the chance to become a Kingsman? 

In retrospect, it’s terribly disturbing, actually, what that test demonstrates…

And Eggsy, with that simple act of instinctive compassion, passes the ideal of it with flying colours. 

“His passengers?”

Merlin does a bit of Kingsman Quartermaster magic, and brings up grainy stills of the two boys. Facial recognition taps into the underground, and within seconds, two names and their corresponding bios pops up. Eggsy’s friends, then. 

“Didn’t give them up,” Merlin says, grudging respect in his voice, as he pulls up a bit of surveillance from Holborn police station, where Eggsy is steadfast in the face of the detective’s crude and blunt threats. Threats which he, if the way his face falls the minute the detective steps out, knows perfectly well are more like promises. 

“Randomly chosen car?” Harry asks, because that kind of perseverance, that kind of loyalty… well, it rather doesn’t spell out random thefts. 

This time it does take Merlin about five minutes to track the connection, but when he does, he leans back and whistles long and low. “His stepfather’s a bit of a crime-boss. Small-time. Nothing that really pings on anyone’s radar. The car he stole belonged to one of his stepfather’s goons.”

Harry makes a split-second decision. The kind that makes everything in him feel in sync; like the right decision has always been there, just waiting for him to arrive at it. 

“Merlin? Delete the file on Eggsy Unwin from my terminal. Make one for his stepfather and his organization instead.”

It feels right, choosing to get to know Eggsy the old-fashioned way. 

It feels… perfect.


End file.
